What is a digital ecosystem, and how can your business benefit from one?

Follow the author of this article

Establishing a digital ecosystem can help you build connections between people, departments and organisations.

Digital transformation has been at the forefront of many organisations’ strategies in recent years. But even for firms that have started their digital journeys, the next stage is to establish a digital ecosystem, which will help them interact with those outside the company and improve performance.

As Gartner Research defines it: “A digital ecosystem is an interdependent group of enterprises, people and/or things that share standardised digital platforms for a mutually beneficial purpose, such as commercial gain, innovation or common interest. Digital ecosystems enable you to interact with customers, partners, adjacent industries ‒ and even your competition.”

You’re not only building digital business, but a more connected, more efficient digital societyPeter Sondergaard, Gartner Research senior vice-president

One digital ecosystem standard bearer is Danske Bank. The Danish firm used its network of partners and businesses to create an online system combining customer data with house market listings, thereby providing potential homebuyers with tax, heating and electricity cost estimates.

This online ecosystem offers a range of benefits: by creating an aggregator of realtors, information and service providers, the bank is able to offer customers strong, reliable financing advice. This means that customers get a full home purchase package, and the bank and its chosen partners get more potential business.

There’s no doubt that setting up this type of ecosystem can help your firm’s bottom line, whichever industry you’re in. According to Gartner’s 2017 CIO Agenda report, 79pc of top-performing digital organisations also participate in a digital ecosystem. By comparison, fewer than half of the companies rated as average performers operate in a digital ecosystem.

A clean bill of health

An organisation you may not expect to be building a digital ecosystem is the NHS. Our national health service is struggling to operate on a day-to-day basis, dogged by long waiting lists, process inefficiencies and staff shortages. Yet in the face of all these obstacles, the organisation ‒ which employs more than 1.5 million people and supports tens of millions of patients ‒ is pursuing a digital course in an attempt to cut costs and improve its staff and patients’ experience.

Not only is the NHS keen to forge connections across its hundreds of departments and locations ‒ it also recognises the need to take a more welcoming approach to partnerships. However, this isn’t something that comes naturally to an organisation for which patient confidentiality and data privacy are critical.

Digital ecosystems enable you to interact with customers, partners, adjacent industriesGartner Research

Juliet Bauer, director of digital experience for NHS England, recently highlighted a new health app store the organisation is launching as an example of this new open approach. This digital tools library will sit under the NHS Choices umbrella, but will be open to third parties and individuals to submit their own medical research and resources to help in areas such as mental health, diabetes, care of the elderly, smoking and maternity.

Speaking at the Digital Health Technology Show in London in March, Ms Bauer explained: “We’ll work with partners we trust to do different parts of this process to make sure we build out as many tools as possible.

“Even though the system behind the scenes is quite complex, we want to make it easier to work with the NHS. People genuinely want to help the NHS make things better ‒ there’s a really strong feeling about that ‒ but we actually make it quite hard for people to help us by taking the pressure off.”

Staying secure

Of course, for any firm following this model, it’s important to take steps to prevent data leakage. Opening up the NHS network in this way has several security implications to ensure only appropriate materials are shared.

This means that clear boundaries and open communication with partners are crucial. The NHS, for example, will be using the developer.nhs.uk site to help potential partners understand the rules for becoming part of its health service ecosystem. The site will host the criteria for getting into the store, and explain how third parties can connect to health data and make use of forthcoming identity services the NHS is creating.

If enough businesses get this process right, the opportunities are endless. As Gartner Research senior vice-president Peter Sondergaard says, the ultimate benefit of a digital ecosystem extends far beyond the success of any individual person or company.

“You’re not only building digital business,” he says, “but a more connected, more efficient digital society ‒ from smarter cities to agricultural systems that can feed billions, to the need for fewer hospital beds.”